Knitting Along

{Knitting along with Ginny again this week}

Ladies and gents, the March sock is so not done. I did get it knit up to the heel turn, but that is going to have to wait until I'm finished with the recital on Sunday. I'm teaching late every night, and then spending the rest of the evening trying to finalize the program, entering compositions into Finale, and taking care of the gazillions of details that go into planning a program with 52 participants and all their family and friends. So, March sock? Let's aim for April 15th. There's only about 6 more hours in that sock (maybe?) but it sadly has to wait.


And a question for you sock knitters- how many hours would it take you to finish a sock like this? A pretty average lace pattern, tiny cable on either side of the lace, stockinette otherwise, minimal ribbing at the top... It seems like I've been knitting this sock forever, but I really only have about 4 hours total in it aside from getting the toe started. Perhaps it's just second sock syndrome catching up to me...


I just finished reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and while I like to read non-fiction, this was very different. It almost felt like a novel in the way it was told and I couldn't put it down. I know that added to my unfinished sock (though I did read while I knit) but this story- heartbreaking in so many ways, elating in so many ways... you simply must read it. This may end up being the best book I'll read this year.

Blue II

So in last week's edition of Ginny's yarn along I told you about how off-kilter I've been with knitting lately. Busy schedule, no particular project grabbing at my attention, casting on, ripping out...

And I think I've found a cure.

Meet two little skeins of Baby Alpaca Lace.

Soooo soft.

Soooo pretty.

Now I just have to make the final decision on how to use it. I'm down to just three shawls...

What would you make with 850 yards of this laceweight?

And this is March's sock. I haven't even turned the heel yet. I'm going to put a hustle on it and see what comes of it before Friday, but I also need to finish up mitts for my sweet sister-in-law Abby who has been patiently waiting during my brief season of discontent with knitting. Any bets on when I might finish this sock? Do you think I have a chance to finish them by Monday?

Part of the lack of progress on this month's sock is due to all the school planning that has filled our evenings lately. Our local homeschool conference is just a few weeks off and I've been trying to make sure that I know exactly what I'm interested in before I head to the conference. This stack of files and books has followed me all over the place over the last few weeks!

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Yarn Along

Today I'm knitting along with Ginny at Small Things and posting a current read. I picked up Respect the Spindle at the library for what I thought would be a casual flip through.... and now I want to learn to spin. Maybe for my birthday this sumer there might be a drop spindle and a bit of wool to play with?


Current knitting? After all the busy-ness of last weekend and the beginning of this week I've only really gotten through another row or two, but it *is* a few more rows on my second lace and cable sock and I'm determined to finish it by the end of the month to keep my sock goal going.


I don't know why March always surprises me like this- March and early April are the heaviest weeks in the studio work wise each year, although I always seem to forget until these weeks arrive on my doorstep. I have to be even more intentional about crafting so that I don't feel overrun with work.


In other knitting news I finally got up the courage to unravel a sweater that was mostly done but in completely the wrong size and with some mistakes that were bugging me. I actually feel much better that it's washed and back to center pull balls ready to knit again, this time in the correct size! I never wanted to work on it because it seemed like those mistakes were yelling at me every time I picked it up. I'm glad I finally went for it and ripped the silly thing back.

Get Set...

This was a very busy crafting weekend for me! I don't get to have a weekend this full of sewing a knitting very often, but I was able to finish or come within a few seams of finishing several things.

First up: the February sock- complete!

This sock is the Lace and Cable sock from Wendy Johnson's book Socks from the Toe Up. I finished this one in just over a week, and I've already cast on the second to act as March's sock.

The next photo is the most accurate to color. I was hoping to be able to photograph some things outside this weekend for good light, but nature had a totally different idea- ice, snow and fog. Oh yeah, and a thunder storm when it was only 36F out- it rained for the better part of 24 hours.

I used this project to learn to cable without a cable needle. I cabled without it as much as I could, but some nights I wasn't up to dealing with it and used a toothpick. The pattern wasn't difficult, but there was a little bit of extra thought to it because of how it is charted- there is a left cable and right cable chart each 4 rows a piece and then the main lace chart that has a 16 row repeat. So on row 6 of the lace chart you have to remember to be on row 2 of the cable charts- again, not difficult, but I did have to pay attention, so this was only knit after the littles were in bed.


As for Me-Made-March, it starts tomorrow! Are you going to participate? Tonight I'm going to try to finish up the two skirts that basically just need hemmed to be finished, and then I'm going to try to look through my options and plan ahead a bit. I know one hole in my me-made wardrobe is tops and I don't know if I have something to match each of my me-made skirts without just wearing black all the time. I'm looking at patterns right now for tops to see if I can figure out a good match for items I already have.

Get Ready...

February's sock, Wendy's Lace and Cable Socks from her first sock book. The pretty purple Leyburn socks are in timeout, not because they've done anything wrong but because I made one of the silliest mistakes a knitter can make- ignoring my true gauge and going with "but I always knit X gauge on that size needle!" Go ahead- mock me. Someday I'll actually learn. So they're in timeout while I decide whether or not to keep knitting and give them to someone else (even though that Claudia handpaint yarn was a birthday gift to me to use for myself!) or to rip them completely out and restart in the correct gauge.


These are going much better, thank you, *and* they actually fit...

And my sewing desk looks like this:

which is quite atrocious, I know, but necessary. I'm trying to get a few more things in before the beginning of Me-Made-March next week , including two skirts that are oh so close to being complete and a pair of pants to re-cut. And all the tulle? Petticoats, my friends. Probably two, maybe three. I started out using the Sugardale tutorial and then it became something else. It's probably not "correct" but it's going to work and NOT be itchy (since I'm using cheap tulle instead of crinoline).


The petticoat in progress is for a 22-ish inch skirt, but I also need one for tea length and I'm considering  a third for the two ankle length skirts I wear regularly, but still pondering how that will have to be constructed.


What are you working on this week?

First

As in first finished project of the year!

These are plain vanilla socks, knit for my husband in Patons classic wool (which is typed on ravelry as a worsted weight, but I treat as a DK but maybe that's just me being weird...) on US 3's, or as I will fondly remember them, the set of needles that led me to a tetanus shot over Christmas break.


One of the goals I have for the year is to finish 1 sock each month for a grand total of 6 pairs***. That would be precisely 6 pair more than I finished last year a.k.a. the year I cast on 3 pair, frogged 2 and have 1 sitting complete *almost* over the arch of my foot- but just the first one- and that's since I cast it on in August on the New York trip...


That sad thing about this is that I started knitting in 2008 precisely because I wanted to knit socks, and knit socks I have not done. So this is the year of the sock in my own little sock club. And maybe even the year I complete more than a few bigger things, because a girl can dream BIG right? *I'm resisting the urge to join every single "knit 12 sweater/12 pairs of socks/ 12 shawls/12 blah blah blahs" that comes my way because I want to join ALL OF THEM and have like 6 projects due every month to keep "on schedule". I'm such an over planner.

And this is the part where I tell you that these went super fast- WAY faster than knitting socks in the past. These were cast on December 11th in a fit of "I *must* cast on something that isn't a Christmas gift with a deadline", and in spite of being put aside to finish one shawl, two sweaters and two pairs of elf shoes, I was done on January 6th. (Although I thought the ribbing of the cuff would go on forever and I may have told Brian on far more than one occasion that his legs are ridiculously long. )


I'm going to attribute the quickness to:

A) the mass amount of knitting I did from October-December on Christmas gifts and how much my general speed increased due to that,

and

B) the fact that I made a lace scarf that was crazy hard for me finished in November and a lace shawl that had a TON of hours in it but I still finished in a tad over 3 weeks. After that just about everything seems possible.


*** Is it crazy that I'm secretly hoping to finish 12 pair this year, as in 1 pair per month? Totally a wild desire right now.